Notice

1 Title

2 Commencement

This notice comes into force on the day after the date of its notification in the Gazette.

3 Revocation of this notice

This notice is revoked on 24 February 2021.

4 Interpretation

In this notice, specified health practitioner means an orthopaedic surgeon who is participating in the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association Continuing Professional Development Programme as the visited orthopaedic surgeon.

5 Declaration of protected quality assurance activities

The following quality assurance activities are protected to the extent that they are undertaken by orthopaedic surgeons acting on behalf of the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association in relation to specified health practitioners:

(a)

reviewing the following information provided by the specified health practitioner:

(i)

information about the specified health practitioner’s practice gathered from feedback questionnaires completed by colleagues, co-workers, and patients; and

(ii)

a summary of the surgical audits relating to the specified health practitioner’s practice from the previous 2 years; and

(iii)

the specified health practitioner’s operating list from the previous 2 months; and

(iv)

current data from the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association National Joint Registry relating to the specified health practitioner’s practice; and

(v)

a copy of the specified health practitioner’s continuing professional development activities to date; and

(vi)

a completed practice profile questionnaire; and

(b)

discussing the information provided under paragraph (a) with the specified health practitioner; and

(c)

(d)

observing the specified health practitioner perform a surgical session; and

(e)

conducting a concluding interview with the specified health practitioner; and

(f)

providing a report including recommendations that address any shortcomings to the specified health practitioner and the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association Practice Visit Committee.

Dated at Wellington this 14th day April of 2016.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman,Minister of Health.

Explanatory note

This note is not part of the notice, but is intended to indicate its general effect.

This notice comes into force on the day after the date of its notification in the Gazette. It declares the quality assurance activities described in clause 5 to be protected. Quality assurance activities are activities that are undertaken to improve the practices or competence of health practitioners (in this notice, orthopaedic surgeons) by assessing the health services performed by those practitioners. The effect of protecting a quality assurance activity is that—

any information that becomes known solely as a result of the activity is confidential; and

any documents brought into existence solely for the purposes of the activity are confidential; and

the persons who engage in the activity in good faith are immune from civil liability.

The protections afforded by this notice are subject to certain statutory exceptions. For example, this notice does not prohibit the disclosure of information that does not identify, either expressly or by implication, a particular individual.